As you know, my friends, medical marijuana has been approved in Montana. I'd like to bring your attention to a little-known effect of marijuana. When ingested by juvenile bunnies, it impairs their judgment, making this look like a good idea. For our safety and that of the bunnies, I beg you, I implore you, DON'T USE MARIJUANA!

The point still stands, even though the video was shot in Texas. And also despite the fact that bunnies lack the opposable thumbs to hang onto a joint.

When a tragic accident forces musician Ellie Johnson to operate her family’s 7,000 acre farm and ranch in Eastern Montana, she soon finds the place plagued with unseen predators that can crush cow bones to dust and drain all fluids from chickens without any punctures. Hopelessly accident prone, Ellie’s innate ability to be a smartass does nothing to find impossibly strong hooligan with very sharp, pointy ends. With Stinky the mustang and the mouth-breather Sven as her only allies, she sets out to the Badlands to find the source of eerie blue lights that appear to the west, but instead tumbles into another world riddled with famine, disease, and the Necragii, the Death Priests of the Urtun.

In the segment below, we find our heroine exhausted by weeks of calving and predation on her animals. She finally decides to ask for help. After getting back to the house, I collapsed into the chair by the phone as dawn broke over the sky. With a groan, I decided to call another neighbor with a…

I often find myself agog at my own stupidity. The following is one of those moments in which I have to laugh or I'd blush from mortification, though I usually do both anyway.

Finally! There’s light at the end of the tunnel! Due to numerous concerts and music festivals, I hadn’t really slept or been home regularly since the middle of March. I was absolutely exhausted, but thrilled that I was going to finish the year with an exemplary recorder program.

I had prepared for Murphy’s Law to the best of my abilities, but still had a busy day ahead. Have you ever herded 45 fourth graders onto risers without anyone falling off, puking, breaking their instruments, or bleeding? I’m convinced it can’t be done. To complicate things even more, Aaron and I needed to drive different cars to work because he had to be there at the butt-crack of dawn. I elected to sleep a little longer and drive my ‘87 Mercury Grand Marquis, a car, at least until that day, I loved probably a little more than was enti…

I've been at this for years. I've written some good stuff. I've written a lot of crap, including a painfully awful first novel. I've read countless agent blogs and how-to sites for writers. I'm terrified, but I'm ready to take the next step, to go to second base, so to speak.

I'm lined up for my first writer's conference in October, at which I'm sure I will look like a complete idiot. After the conference, I'm going to take what I learn to finish editing my novel and start querying agents. I'm absolutely petrified, but the time has come for me to stop hiding behind my computer screen in the dark.

I'm afraid my ego is too big and my common sense too small, but I hope that good things will come of it. I know publication may never happen, but it has a zero chance of happening if I don't try.

Scooter grew up on a large family farm and ranch in eastern Montana. She now teaches K-6 Music at a rural school and holds B.A. degrees in Music Education, Sociology/Anthropology, and an M.A. in Fine Arts. She loves fiction that breaks the canonical and sucks readers in like a bird into a Shop Vac. She has written choral music, a play, and two novels. Her current novel, The Rider of Nealra, is the first in the "Crooked Smile Woman" series.